Warning: This post contains spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 2 , Episode 2. Whenever Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) appears on my screen in HBO’s House of the Dragon , I am gripped by a familiar, tortuous inner conflict. On one hand, the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard is objectively the absolute worst—he’s impetuous, makes horrible decisions left and right, and, perhaps worst of all, is still insufferably self righteous.
But, ah, here’s the rub: he’s also ridiculously good looking, which perhaps explains how he’s able to break his vow of celibacy left and right. In the world of Game of Thrones , it’s frankly unusual for a villain to be this hot. We’ve had our share of smoldering antiheroes, like Nikolaj Coster-Waldeau’s incestuous Jaime Lannister, but most of the time, characters coded as outright villains are also pasty and unappealing.
In that sense, Ser Criston breaks the mold; at this point, he’s pretty irredeemable, but have you seen those doe eyes? What’s a girl to do?! Ser Criston already made a mess of things in Season 1 , when he had an affair with the young princess Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and, in the wake of their break-up, allowed his rage to turn him into his pettiest self. Not for nothing, he also killed multiple people simply because he could not control his temper. Only two episodes into this season, he’s already expanded on that miserable track record.
First, as we saw during the premiere, he failed to protect King Aegon I.
